story time; fencing
Something about my relationship with my parents is that they tend to forget about my actual needs, and they’re awesome at getting me presents which are perfect for me.
Fencing worked that way. Gene, my maitre d’armes, thought it would be good publicity to run a booth at Ren Faire. You’d pay money, fence current students who volunteered. My parents indulged me, and I beat the student; then Gene fenced me. I scored a point on him, and he beat me easily after that.
story time; fencing
Suddenly I was learning to do something COOL, where my progress was MINE, not something my parents and society wanted. And physical.
Something about me you probably won't guess is that I'm actually a *jock* in a lot of ways. But before I started fencing I'd been thoroughly educated that I was lousy at anything athletic.
I mean the last chunk of high school still mostly passed in a depressive haze, but fencing may have kept me from offing myself.
story time; fencing
I was thinking about it today, because I was thinking of how fencing as a sport has some of the anonymous comfort a friend's mentioned about fursuiting.
It's much harder to judge someone based on their face when suited up. That's appealing now, but it must've been huge at some level to a scrawny, pasty teen with bad pimples convinced they were the ugliest thing in the world. I lucked into the best possible sport for me at that time.
story time; fencing
I *think* this was a test of sportsmanship, how does the kid react to being beaten handily? I was starry-eyed. Gene talked to my parents and my parents indulged me in starting fencing lessons!
At this point I really didn't have much of a soul. The first couple of years of high school completely smashed any personality that I might've been developing, the rest suppressed what remained. Despite the academic achievement everything had me convinced I was ugly, stupid, worthless.